Marie Antoinette’s Favorite Portraitist

choi

Roberta Smith, What She Painted at the Revolution; Marie Antoinette’s favorite portraitist gets a show of her own. New York Times, Feb 12, 2016 (under
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/1 ... politan-museum.html
(exhibition review on Vigée Le Brun: Woman Artist in Revolutionary France is on view through May 15 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Feb 15-May 15, 2016
http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2016/vigee-le-brun
)

Note:
(1) "Congress just renewed its 2014 prohibition on spending public money on the portraits of politicians that by long tradition have graced the walls of the United States Capitol."

That means politicians of federal government must pay for their portraits.

(2) "The career of the French portraitist Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842), the subject of a ravishing, overdue survey at the Metropolitan Museum of Art"
(a) Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lo ... _Vig%C3%A9e_Le_Brun
(Marie-Louise-Élisabeth Vigée was the daughter of a portraitist and fan painter, Louis Vigée; In 1776 she married Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Le Brun, a painter and art dealer)

Well, I do not know what to say. In the Web, reputable websites identify her given names as "Elisabeth Louise" or "Louise Elisabeth."
(b) The French surname le Brun meas " 'the brown one,' from Old French brun, referring to the color of the hair, complexion, or clothing (see Brown)."

In Modern French, too, brun" is a noun masculine or an adjective masculine for "brown."
(c) ravish (vt; ultimately from Latin rapere to seize, rob): "to overcome with emotion (as joy or delight) <ravished by the scenic beauty>"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ravish


(3) "Stylistically, Vigée Le Brun avoided both the lightness of Late Rococo and the artifice of Neo-Classicism, countering both with a modulated naturalism. * * * She wisely fled France at the start of the revolution * * * before returning to France in 1802 once her name was struck from the list of enemy émigrés."
(a) two definitions of lightness (n):
(i) "the state of having a sufficient or considerable amount of natural light"
www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/lightness
(ii) "the quality or state of being illuminated : ILLUMINATION"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lightness
(c) Rococo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rococo

Quote:

"It developed in the early 18th century in Paris, France as a reaction against the grandeur, symmetry, and strict regulations of the Baroque, especially of the Palace of Versailles. Rococo artists and architects used a more jocular, florid, and graceful approach to the Baroque. Their style was ornate and used light colours, asymmetrical designs, curves, and gold.

"By the end of the 18th century, Rococo was largely replaced by the Neoclassic style. In 1835 the Dictionary of the French Academy stated that the word Rococo 'usually covers the kind of ornament, style and design associated with Louis XV's reign and the beginning of that of Louis XVI.' It includes therefore, all types of art from around the middle of the 18th century in France. The word is seen as a combination of the French rocaille (stone) and coquilles (shell), due to reliance on these objects as decorative motifs. The term may also be a combination of the Italian word "barocco" (an irregularly shaped pearl, possibly the source of the word 'baroque') and the French 'rocaille' (a popular form of garden or interior ornamentation using shells and pebbles)"

(i) Louis XV of France (1710-1774; reign 1715-1774; great-grandfather was Louis XIV, but his grandfather died in 1711 as a heir, so were his mother, father and older brother in 1712 of smallpox or measles)  en.wikipedia.org
(ii) Louis XV of France (1754 – 1793; reign 1774-1791; grandfather was Louis XV; his older brother died at 9 in 1761 and his father (heir) died of tuberculosis in 1765 when he was 11)  en.wikipedia.org
(d) émigré (n; French, from past participle of émigrer to emigrate): "EMIGRANT; especially : a person who emigrates for political reasons"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/émigré

choi

(4) "Seen last fall in a larger version at the Grand Palais in Paris, this show of 79 portraits (and one landscape) is the first retrospective and only the second exhibition of Vigée Le Brun’s work in modern times. It has been organized at the Met by Katharine Baetjer, curator in the department of European paintings * * * Ms Baetjer said that this was the first monographic exhibition devoted to a woman during her 40 years in the department."
(a) retrospective (n): "a generally comprehensive exhibition, compilation, or performance of the work of an artist over a span of years"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/retrospective
(b) monograph (n): "a learned treatise on a small area of learning; also : a written account of a single thing"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/monograph

(5) "Vigée (pronounced Vee-ZHAY) Le Brun was born with a surfeit of natural talent and ambition as well as beauty, charm, a head for business and making connections * * * Her position was solidified by Marie Antoinette, whose favor included helping the painter gain entry into the Royal Academy, which excluded artists married to art dealers, in 1783."
(a) head (n): "natural aptitude or talent <a good head for figures>"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/head

To "have a head for" is a phrase.
(b) The full name, in French, of Royal Academy is Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture -- the Pari-based, now defunct Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture (Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture; founded 1648). See French art salons and academies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_art_salons_and_academies
(From the seventeenth century to the early part of the twentieth century, artistic production in France was controlled by artistic academies which organized official exhibitions called salons. In France, academies are institutions and learned societies which monitor, foster, critique and protect French cultural production)

choi

(6) "Vigée Le Brun painted Marie Antoinette numerous times. The show opens with her freshman effort, an enormous full-length formal portrait of that queen from 1778, painted when the artist was only 22 — as she notes in her signature. Made at the request of Marie Antoinette’s mother, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, it is less than perfect. The queen’s white satin panniers look so hard and shiny they might almost be enameled metal; the background is crowded with competing architectural elements. But the painting pleased Maria Theresa, who was not as interested in a good likeness as proof of her daughter’s regal bearing in court dress. And the treatment of Marie Antoinette’s face captures her dignity, her sweetness and something of the Hapsburg chin."
(a) freshman: "BEGINNER, NEWCOMER"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/freshman
(b)
(i) Marie Antoinette
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Antoinette
(born Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna von Habsburg-Lothringen; 1755 – 1793; married in 1770 at the age of 14 years and 5 months; the 1778 portrait is in right column, where portraits are arranged chronologically)
(ii) Antoinette
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoinette
(c) pannier (n; from Latin [noun masculine] panis bread)
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pannier
(illustration)
(d) Maria Theresa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Theresa
(Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina; 1717 – 1780; the only female ruler [1740-1780] of the Habsburg dominions and the last of the House of Habsburg)
(e) Hapsburg chin
(i) Search images.google.com with (Hapsburg chin) -- no quotation marks -- to see for yourself. Even though the house is usually spelled House of Habsburg, the chin is “Hapsburg chin.”
(ii) Susan, Hapsburg/Habsburg. Jun 10, 2012
http://www.historicalfictiononli ... iewtopic.php?t=5764
("The German would be Habsburg. The New York Times uses Hapsburg which appears to be the Anglicized version. Last year the eldest son of the last Austrian emperor died. The official website for his funeral used Habsburg in both the German and English version")
(iii) Hapsburg: "European dynasty, from German Habsburg, from the name of a castle on the Aar in Switzerland, originally Habichtsburg, literally 'Hawk's Castle.' "
www.etymonline.com/index.php?all ... amp;search=Habsburg
(iv) (Modern) German-English dictionary:
* Habicht (noun masculine): "hawk"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Habicht
(v)
* prognathism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prognathism
* prognathism (first known use: mid 19th century; from pro- before + Greek gnathos jaw)  www.oxforddictionaries.com  (The accent is in the first syllable.)

choi

(7) Marie Antoinette in a Blue Velvet Dress and White Skirt (1788)

File:MarieAntoinette1788.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MarieAntoinette1788.jpg

(8) "She [Vigée Le Brun] excelled in more intimate formats, the three-quarter and especially bust-length portraits, where her renderings of expression, lightly powdered ringlets and fabric are beyond reproach. This is confirmed by her 1782 portrait of the Duchess of Polignac in a white chemise and a black wrap, wearing a straw hat decorated with flowers. The image has a casual, almost snapshotlike freshness, and the ruffles at the neckline are as soft as flower petals."
(a) For powdered hair, see wig
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wig
(section 1.3 18th century)
(b) ringlet (haircut)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringlet_(haircut)
(c) Yolande de Polastron
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yolande_de_Polastron
(1749 – 1793 (NOT guillotined); Duchess of Polignac)

Quote: "Yolande Martine Gabrielle de Polastron was born in Paris in the reign of King Louis XV. Her [father was] Jean François Gabriel, Count of Polastron, seigneur de Noueilles, Venerque and Grépiac * * * As was customary with aristocrats, most of whom bore more than one Christian name [but no last name], she was generally known by the last of her names (Gabrielle). * * * At the age of sixteen, Gabrielle was betrothed to Jules François Armand, comte de Polignac [qv: 1st Duke of Polignac, 1780], marquis de Mancini (1746-1817), whom she married on 7 July 1767, a few months short of her eighteenth birthday.

(d) ruffle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruffle

* Not to be confused with ruff (clothing)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruff_(clothing)
(worn [by men, women and children] in Western Europe from the mid-sixteenth century to the mid-seventeenth century [which was a century prior to Duchess of Polignac's time])

choi

(9) "The duchess’s lips are parted and her teeth just visible, a detail considered risqué but that is recurrent here, starting with a radiant self-portrait that hangs next to the Polignac."
(a) The NYT review carries the self-portrait, whose caption reads, " 'Self-Portrait With Cerise Ribbons' (circa 1782), by Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun."
(b) cerise (color)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerise_(color)
(section 1 Etymology)

(10) "Vigée Le Brun was also known for her sensitive depictions of children, best represented here by a 1786 portrait of her beloved daughter, Julie. It shows the 6-year-old holding a mirror and studying her face, and is a kind of double portrait. We see her full-face and in profile, connected to the viewer (and her mother) and aloof."

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/159174168051767923/
(the painting in the left upper corner)

(11) "The artist is both bold and subtle in a portrait of Princess Anna Alexandrovna Golitsyna, a Russian hostess, from around 1797, that dresses her in shades of russet with touches of red, including an impressive headpiece, amid deep-green velvet against a wall of violet."
(a) Above this paragraph is a photo with caption: " 'Princess Anna Alexandrovna Golitsyna,' center."
(b) For Anna Alexandrovna Golitsyna, see Ana Gruzinsky-Golitsyn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ana_Gruzinsky-Golitsyn
(Georgian royal princess; daughter of Alexander Bagration-Gruzinsky; married Prince Boris Andreevich Golitsyn)
(c) Eastern Slavic naming customs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Slavic_naming_customs
(table in introduction; section 3 Family name (surname), section 3.3 Social features)

(12) " the 1823 portrait of Count Emmanuel Nikolayevich Tolstoy, a Russian visiting Paris whose mother Vigée Le Brun had painted in St Petersburg 27 years earlier. Swathed in a cloak of darkest blue with touches of faded red and white, unpowdered and unwigged, he is every inch the Romantic hero and fills the frame with a scale and immediacy unlike anything else on view.

The mother was Anna Ivanovna Baryatinskaya Tolstoy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Ivanovna_Baryatinskaya_Tolstoy
(1774 - 1825; her portrait "by Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun"/ section 3 Children: Emmanuel (1802–1825))
, who was unrelated to Count Leo Tolstoy (the last name means "fat" in Russian).